Local Institutions, Participation, and Trust

More civic enagement?

The puzzle

The puzzle

Attitudes → Participation

The puzzle

Attitudes ← Participation

Theory

Main debates about participation and attitudes:

The “ideal” context

Need to find a context where:

• Participation is not driven by strong prior convictions (i.e., not voluntary).

Compulsory Civil Service in Austria

• Around 30 towns in Vorarlberg, Austria, have a compulsory civil service system in place.

Service Characteristics

Today, the common features of this service across the region are:

Data

Issue:

• No systematic data about this service

Solution:

• Contacted Wikipedia editors

• Local journalists

• Compiled a list of all the towns that still have the service with ChatGPT Deep Search function

  • sent an email translated in German with DeepL

• Waited patiently for the responses…

Some hiccups on the way

“Dear Mayor,

…”

“Dear Ms Pro,

I am very honoured that you have promoted me to mayor, but I am ‘only’ the municipal secretary or head of the office!😉 Our mayor is on holiday this week and is therefore not in the office…”

The Research Design

1. Exploratory Phase
   • to understand what is going on and how the service works in practice.
2. Evaluation Phase
   • to estimate and isolate the effect of participating in the service on citizens’ attitudes towards local institutions and political communities.
3. Explanatory Phase
   • to understand the mechanisms through which participation in the service shapes attitudes.
   • to explore the decision-making process of participants and non-participants.

1. The Exploratory Phase

The interviews

• 32 municipalities contacted, 12 replied, 7 agreed to an interview.
• The convenience sample resulted in 14 public officials: either the mayor, municipal employee or service organiser + one citizen involved in the service.

Preliminary findings

• Overview:
  • Highly decentralised and trust-based: each municipality operates independently with flexible task assignment based on individual skills and proximity.
• Participation:
  • Wide variation (2-70 participants per municipality); many pay exemption tax (€70-120) instead.
  • Low participation driven by information gaps, not necessarily disenfranchisement.
• Public Officials’ Perspective:
  • Officials view service as essential for cost-effective maintenance and community cohesion.
  • Several coordination and recruitment challenges.

2. Evaluation Phase

1. Encouragement to participation:

• Control group: Receives no information about the service. A generic link labelled “click to sign up” directs respondents to the standard municipal website.
• Treatment group: Receives information about the service. A link labelled “click to sign up” directs respondents to a streamlined, custom-designed registration interface.

2. Effect of “actual” participation on attitudes:

• Official municipal records to verify actual service enrolment and opt-out payments (first-stage outcome), whilst a follow-up survey one month post-service measures changes in institutional trust and political attitudes (second-stage outcome).

What It Looks Like

Research Design Timeline

Outcomes of Interest

• Primary Outcomes:
  • Institutional trust (local government, public services, national and sovranational institutions)
  • Community attachment (local, national, supranational identities)
  • Civic duty (?)
  • Social cohesion (?)
  • Political efficacy (?)

Thank you!

Appendix

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